You ‘squandered’ your chance in 2016 polls – Rawlings to Mahama

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has fired a shot at former president John Mahama, accusing him of “squandering ” his 2016 chance.

Former President John Dramani Mahama two months ago called on the founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings at his office in Accra to inform him about his ambition to stage a comeback.

The two former presidents met over the former’s intent to lead NDC again, centring their discussions on the re-organization of the party, the executives’ elections as well as the presidential primaries for the party.

Mr Rawlings posited that the destruction of the party begun especially when the party unduly interfered in the last competitive Presidential Primary elections in Sunyani by the systemic monetization of the process and the postponement of the Congress on two occasions ostensibly to favour one candidate over the others.

Mr Rawlings also cautioned against party members issuing statements preventing other presidential aspirants from campaigning in certain locations as happened in the Ashanti Region recently.

MyNewsGH.com has however obtained an audio interview of Mr Rawlings in which he said former president John Mahama squandered his chance when he had in 2016. “There was something I said early on when we lost power. They tilted my words…” Rawlings began.

“I don’t want to go into the graphics…you should be able to see it yourselves. that’s why I find it difficult forgiving some of our people. We could have righted it when we chose Mills to come. That’s why we worked and Mills came, wantumi any3 hu! If he hadn’t died or God hadn’t taken him to Heaven, we would have lost that election…”

On John Mahama, he said NDC had a chance but Mahama “squandered” it. “What’s the word… What’s the word,… squander, yes he squandered it…” Rawlings said. Other NDC figures have already re-echoed what Mr Rawlings said.

Former Deputy Finance Minister, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan stated that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) failed to craft a well thought out message during the 2016 General elections.

This he noted, contributed to why the party lost power to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“It is a problem of communication; we did not actually have a message. Where we did, we were not able to communicate that message”

He said the NDC focused too much on infrastructure development and failed to even communicate the benefits of some the projects it embarked on to the electorates.

According to him, the NDC needs a leader of integrity who can be trusted by Ghanaians without any shred of doubt.